PRIVACY POLICY

OUR COMMITMENT TO POLICY

We value your privacy at all times and are committed to the protection of your personal information.

Our Privacy Policy complies with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) including the Australian Privacy Principles. Further information on privacy in Australia may be obtained by visiting the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at http://www.oaic.gov.au.

Our strict Privacy Policy deals with:

how we collect and manage information we gather from our potential and current clients, suppliers and anyone
else who might access the website or use our services,
how we use and disclose any information we collect;
how you can access the personal information we may hold about you;
how to make a complaint about a privacy breach under this policy and
how we will deal with breach of privacy complaints.
how we keep this information secure, confidential and protected from misuse

This Privacy Policy applies to all of your dealings and interactions with us.

We acknowledge that any personal information we gather about you will only be used for the purposes it has been collected for, such as liaising with your creditors and the Australian Financial Security Authority or as allowed under the law. It is important to us that any information we have collected about you be treated in a confident and professional manner.

By engaging us to provide you with services; communicating with us via email, by telephone, in writing; or visiting any of our websites means that you agree to the use and disclosure of your personal information in the manner described in this policy.

Please note that all calls with us may be monitored and/or recorded, for training and quality control purposes.

How we collect your personal information

As part of our business operations, we are required to collect personal information in order to serve the your needs and requirements.

If you wish us to contact you, you will need to provide a name, contact number and/or email address. You will not have to disclose your name initially (you can use a pseudonym), however we will only be able to provide you with very general information. We will need your full name, address and contact details, as well as details of your income and financial situation, to provide our suite of services to you.

We collect only your relevant personal information which is relevant in order to establish and maintain your accounts and services with us and which we are legally authorised to collect. We may collect personal and financial information about you and your debts. This information may vary depending on the accounts and services you request and use from us.

The kinds of information we may collect about you include (but not limited to):

Personal: name; contact details (such as address, telephone and email); date of birth; account details; gender; marital status and other household information such as number and age of dependents;
Financial: occupation and employment information; financial information such as assets, liabilities, income and expenditure; complaint details; and involvement as a party in pending and completed legal proceedings.
Debt Related: identification information; credit liability information; debt/credit history; type and amount of debts, details of amounts payable and when such amounts are payable, repayment history, including when payments were made and whether payments were made when due, default information.

We may can also collect government identifiers, such as your Centrelink customer reference number and driver’s license details.

We will not use this information without your consent.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the personal information we have on file. However, it is your responsibility to advise us of any changes to this information including changes to your current residential address, contact number or significant changes in your financial circumstances. If you believe any of the information which we hold about you is inaccurate please contact us directly.

Please be advised that if you provide inaccurate or incomplete information, we may not be able to provide you with our services which you require.

Your personal information may be held electronically and in hardcopy form.

We will collect your personal information in a number of ways and it will only be gathered with your consent:

from yourself during meetings, phone conversations, video conferencing or emails,

from your authorised representative or from a person or entity where we have been given your written permission to act as an authorised representative (eg. your creditor); and
from publically available sources.

Without your consent we will not collect sensitive information. This is subject to some exceptions and will be requested only where it is reasonably necessary to comply with the current requirements to the matters which we are completing for you and where collection is permitted by law.

Any personal information required from another party to support your application i.e. payslips, will only be obtained with your written authorisation to the third party.

Accessing our website means we may collect information about your computer, including your IP address, operating system and browser type. This is statistical data about our users browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

There are cookies in use on this site for analytics. We use a web analytics tool that helps us understand how visitors engage with our website. Our web analytic tool collects information anonymously. It reports website trends without identifying individual visitors.

If you do not wish to receive any cookies you may set your browser to refuse cookies, however, this may mean that you are not able to take full advantage of our site.

We have no control over websites outside of our own and are not responsible for the conduct of any companies linked to our website. Before disclosing your personal information via any other websites, we strongly recommend that you read the terms and conditions of those websites.

Why we collect your personal information

We collect personal information for the following purposes:

Assessing your financial situation; and
Providing services in relation to Creditor Relationship Management, Debt Negotiation, Budgeting, and Debt
Arrangements/Agreements

Our policy of using and disclosing your personal information

We will use your private information for the following purposes only:

to provide an initial consultancy service;
to fulfill our contractual obligations to you;
when dealing with third parties on your behalf as authorised by you,
as necessary to comply with submission requirements
to provide you with, or ask your opinion of, information about our products, services and/or special offers that may be of
interest to you; and
to send you a newsletter (if you are receiving direct marketing communications -electronic or otherwise - from us and no longer
wish to receive them, please advise us and your name will be removed from our mailing list.)

We may disclose your personal information to:

your authorised representative/s
to other organisations that are involved in managing or administering your finance/s such as third parties, secured and unsecured creditors
to associated businesses that may want to market products to you, such as mortgage refinance
to an individual/company who represents you, such as secured and unsecured creditors , lawyers, and accountants;
to specific people where you have provided us with consent;
where we are required to do so by law (including to government agencies such as the Australian Financial Security Authority, State Trustees, Centrelink, Child Support Agency or Australian Taxation Office); and
other parties in line with operational needs

Information will only be disclosed:

where reasonably necessary for legal and contractual requirements,
where disclosure is required by law,
where it is necessary to protect our or the public’s rights and/or property,
where there is reason to believe that there is a serious threat to a person’s health or safety

We will be unable to provide a service to you if you refuse to allow use or disclosure of information where it is reasonably necessary to do so.

Before disclosing any of your personal information to an individual/organisation, we will ensure a Letter of Authority is signed by yourself in order for us to liaise with your creditors.

Changing and accessing information

You can request your personal information be updated if it is incorrect or inaccurate.

You can access your personal information by emailing us at [email protected] or contacting us via phone or writing. We will action your request and will endeavor to respond to your request within 14 days. You may be charged a fee for access to this information.

If you wish to have your personal information deleted, we will take reasonable steps to do so except as required to satisfy our legal obligations and operational requirements.

Our steps to keep your personal information safe

We will take reasonable steps to keep the information we collect about you secure and to prevent unauthorised access to this information. Practices, procedures and systems have been implemented to do everything we can to protect your privacy and to ensure compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles. All of our employees, contractors and service providers who handle personal and sensitive information have been trained in safeguarding the security of your information.

However, we cannot give any guarantees or warranties about the security of your information and we will not be held liable for any loss or damage that you may suffer as a result of any unauthorised access to your information.

Our contacts for concerns, complaints or questions

If you wish to ask us questions, give us a feedback or you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information you may

contact our compliance officer on 1300 722 560 between 9am and 6pm AEST Monday till Friday or
write to us at PO Box 1632, Warriewood, New South Wales, 2102 or
email us at [email protected]

We will endeavour to deal with your complaint as soon as is reasonably practicable. If we are unable to satisfactorily resolve your complaint, either party may refer the dispute for mediation to the external dispute resolution scheme administered by the Australian Commercial Disputes Centre (“ACDC”) before having recourse to arbitration or litigation.

We will acknowledge your complaint within ten business days and will provide you with the outcome of your complaint.

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, you can also email our Compliance department at [email protected].

Our procedure to change and update our Privacy Policy

We will review our Privacy Policy regularly and reserves the right to change our Privacy Policy and other policies at any time.

We will notify you of any changes to this policy by posting on our website or any other way as required by law. Your continued use of our website and/or our services following any such amendments will be deemed to be confirmation that you accept those amendments.

For the current policy version please check our website or contact us directly via email, using the contact details above.

This Privacy Policy came into existence on 1st of March, 2018.